4 comments:

Yes - and the more I read it, the more I like it, particularly the 4th stanza (perhaps it's because I'm 50-something!)

I keep thinking I'd like to play a lute - I've found myself playing lute music on my guitar recently, for one reason or another, and it gives me an itch for the real thing. Oh well, can't do everything! If days were 30 hours long...

I'm glad you said that. I was trying to bring in some power as I thought the German, English and French translations were lacking it. I instinctively felt it was required but of course I couldn't prove it without the original Chinese which I couldn't read anyway. But I have a gut feeling that when we move poems from China to Europe we tend sometimes to be too soft on them. Ezra Pound almost uniquely wasn't and I'm even harder than him.